Tag: Tim Holtz

“V” is for Vintage

Hello friends and happy Friday!  Are you looking forward to a nice weekend?  I have some crafty time in store for me, but honestly, I need to be cleaning my craft room!

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge blog!  Please be sure to check out the challenge blog to see how to play as we go through the alphabet letters every-other week (fortnight) for each new challenge.

 

For this challenge, we are at the letter “V” for Vintage and here’s what I’ve come up with:

I love the look of vintage style cards, but I don’t make them very often, so this was a great challenge to get me motivated in making one!

I fell in love with the Simon Hurley “In the Garden” stamp set (discontinued)  last year , but never got a chance to play with it until now.  I thought the images were perfect for a “vintage vibe”.  I got that along with these gorgeous papers from Scrapbook.com called “Vintage“, of course!  The imagery went well with the stamps in the set.

I started with cutting all of the different patterns from the paper pad into a card design.  I sponged around the edges with Hickory Smoke oxide ink.  I die cut the “graph paper” panel with Taylored Expressions A2 Postage Stamp Stacklets die.  On that panel, I stamped the wording from the SH stamp set with Hickory Smoke oxide as well as a few hearts in Tattered Rose oxide ink.  I also took a music score rub-on that I got from Scrapbook.com to add in the corner and then sponged around the edges with Hickory Smoke oxide.  I layered this panel onto a piece of grey cardstock.  The second layer was also layered onto another piece of grey cardstock and then layered over another piece of the Vintage pattern paper over an A2 top folding white card base.

For the stamped images, I stamped them in black pigment ink and then clear heat embossed them.  I used Shabby Shutters, Tattered Rose and Victorian Velvet oxide inks to watercolor by smooshing the ink pads onto a surface and using a water brush for coloring.  I fussy cut out the images and popped them up over the panel with foam tape.

Before attaching this panel onto the next panel, I added some grey seam binding ribbon tied in a bow on the side and then popped it up with foam tape.  I also die cut the lettering from the Tim Holtz Script Words set in black and attached onto the  graph panel.

  • I hope you’ve enjoyed my card for you today and that you’ll stop over to the blog to play along in the challenge with us!  Wishing you a happy and productive weekend!

Challenges:

  1. Sweet Stampin’ – LOVE! (must use stamp)
  2. Allsorts – #816 Romance and/or Music
  3. Stamping Sensations – Valentines, Weddings, Romance or Anything Goes + must have stamping
  4. Aud Sentiments – Love/Anniversary/Wedding and/or Shimmer + sentiment
  5. Triple B – Birds/Butterflies/Blooms (must use at least one)
  6. Try it On Tuesday – Romance

October Art Journal-A Strange Feeling

Hello friends! **THIS IS A PRE-SCHEDULED POST AS I’M AWAY AT A STAMP RETREAT!!** 

The weather is finally starting to cool down now and we’ve finished cleaning the yard to prepare for winter months to follow soon.  Halloween will also be here in a few days, so I thought it would be fun to make my page today with that in mind!

Today is the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month.  I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” October prompt of “ODD/Oddities” (anything unusual or strange): 

I don’t know if this is considered odd to anyone else, but I certainly do!  This weird scientist looking guy has a strange facial expression as he’s holding up a head in the bottle!  I’ve put so many details in this page that I thought you’d need to see close-up photos below.

For my background:  Starting with a 5.5″ x 8.5″ heavy watercolor paper with pre-punched holes at the top for binding later, I sprayed the background with mica sprays in Hocus Pocus, Jack-O-Lantern and Flickering Candle.  I sprayed some extra water over top to get them to blend together as they seem very concentrated and they didn’t move much over the watercolor paper after spraying a few times.  I took a leaves stencil inked over places with light brown ink.  I then ink blended the edges with black ink and stamped some lettering stamped randomly.  Lastly, I splattered with black and gold watercolor. 

Upon a closer look at the bottom:  I needed an area for shelves to hold the potion bottles, so I took some Tim Holtz Halloween collage paper and attached it with matte medium.  It crinkled a bit, but I sort of liked that look.  I then found some decorative strips in my stash and added those for the “shelves”.  The crow and “curious” ephemera was also found with all of my Tim Holtz Halloween stash….along with the paper doll “guy”.  I cut off a head from one of them to place inside the jar.  I added some thin metal wire around the jar and cut a slit in the guy’s hand to make it look like he’s holding it.  I also added a bit of color to the guy’s flower and bow tie on his jacket outfit with markers.  BEFORE popping up the paper doll guy to the page, I ripped some black cardstock for the ground underneath him and tucked in the bones.

For the Bottles:  I used a Taylored Expressions “If You Dare” Stamp & Stencil set to make all of the bottles.  I also used the TE “If You Dare Halloween Labels” to foil and cut out to place over each jar.  To die cut some extra “strange things” to put inside a few of the jars and the bones at the bottom, I die cut pieces from the TE “Little Bits Cauldron Confetti” dies.  (The die cut bats from this were also used on the top of the page.)  For more finishing details, I doodled in some of the jars and then added some colored glitter/sparkle and pearl drops for the inside contents.  If you look closely at the crow’s eye, you can see I’ve added a tiny dot of yellow sparkle.  Some of the details were popped up and some were just glued down.

A closer look at the top:  Mostly die cut pieces were used at the top and the first I put down was the spider web and spider from Whimsy Stamps called Spiders and Webs…they’re huge!  (this store is so good at spooky things!)  I drew a line with a black marker from the spider to the web.  For the window, I die cut it out from a really old Mama Elephant die I’ve had in my stash…not sure if it’s still available.  BEFORE I placed the window down, I die cut the moon from the Lawn Fawn Shadow Box Halloween Add-On die set.  I blended in some yellow and gray  and covered it with a glitter sparkle pen.  I added the die cut bats and placed the window over top.

Lastly, I took some Tim Holtz Halloween clippings word strips and added to the page.  I took a black marker and went around the strips above the paper doll “guy”.

I know there are people that are not Halloween fans or care for the spooky things, but I really enjoy the weirdness of it all and have fun making things with it!  In the words of Lydia from Beetlejuice:  “I myself am strange and unusual“.

Winona Ryder in a hat as Lydia in Beetlejuice

I do hope you’ve enjoyed my page today and I really appreciate you stopping by!  I will be back later with things we’re doing at the retreat!  See you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Autumn Colors & Inspiration (Purple, orange, yellow and black!)

November AJ Page-Winter Wonderland

Hello friends!  Hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving for those that celebrate.  And with that, there is also the Black Friday deals, and today is “small business Saturday”.  So have you’ve gotten some really good deals or do you shop during this time?  I don’t really shop too much during this time, but I enjoy hearing about the great deals everyone has gotten!

The last Saturday of the month also brings us to the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month.  I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” November prompt of “STENCILS” (can also make your own):

I do love stencils, don’t you?!  I have lots of them in my stash and I don’t always use them as much as I’d like to, so how fun to pull out several of them for this month’s prompt!  All of the ones I’ve used on my page are from Tim Holtz.  The entire page is stencil expect for the deer, sentiment and bottom snow!  (I would’ve used the deer for a stencil too, but I don’t have one.)

For the background:  Started with my usual 6″x9″ 140# watercolor pre-punched holes on the side.  I took the large star looking stencil and sponged some VersaMark ink over it towards the top of the page and heat embossed it with clear EP.  (This made a “resist” for the ink I layered on top.)  I took a long strip of masking paper and ripped it to create some hills for the bottom.  I needed to mask so the colors didn’t go over it.   I took several different colors of Distress Oxide sprays along with spritzing with water to help the colors move around and made a few layers with this.  Once dry, I went over the background with the dotted stencil and sponged ink over it with a blue color.

For the tree stencil, I needed to be sure that it would cover the background I created, so I used some green paint to sponge over the stencil, but because the background is blue, it’s sort of harder to see the green.  This stencil also had a second part where you can cover each tree with another layer for either another green or snow.  So I used some Hero Arts white paste to cover it with.  I also used the same paste to add another layer of stencil to the sky for snowfall.

The silhouette deer is a stamp that I stamped with black pigment ink and then I heat embossed it with clear EP.  My final touch to the page was to take the Hero Arts white paste and cover the hills at the bottom using my spatula.  Really love the dried look of the paste as it has a wonderful shine to it which works great for snow!  It didn’t take as long as I thought it would to dry. (About 2 hours it was hardened.)

I found a couple of the Tim Holtz sticker quotes to go with my theme, added to black cardstock and went around the edges with a silver paint pen.  I cut them out with scissors and glued to the page.  I took some silver wax and went around the edge of the page with my finger and lastly added some glitter drops to a couple of the centers of the “stars” in the sky.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today or have been inspired!  I appreciate you taking the time to stop in! 

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Nature (I love nature in the wintertime!  So pretty covered in snow!)
  2. Try It on Tuesday – Baby, It’s Cold Outside!
  3. Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes
  4. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media (stencils, pastes, paints, inks)
  5. Stencil Fun – Anything Goes using stencil(s) optional: leaves
  6. 613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes optional embossing (heat embossed)

August AJ Page-A is for Adventure

Hello friends!  Wishing you a happy weekend!  We’ve had a heat advisory in our area all week, so I’ve been staying indoors organizing, cleaning and crafting!  Hope that you’re taking some time to enjoy your weekend even if it’s just for a moment of time.

I can’t believe we’re at the last weekend of August, because it’s time for the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month.  I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” August prompt of “LETTERS”:

Thinking of YOUR stash, what do you come up with from the prompt?  I think as crafters, we probably all have some type of lettering in our stash!  I have stamps, stickers, chipboard, wood, stencils, ephemera, etc so I knew this would be a good opportunity to pull out something.  And if that doesn’t work for you, I suppose you could take the prompt literally, and attach an actual written letter or make one up yourself to add to your AJ page.  Lots of ways to interpret a prompt which makes it easy to come up with a plan to inspire you.  So this is what I came up with.

For the background:  I started with a 6″ x 9″ Strathmore Acrylic paper with pre-punched holes at the top and stenciled some crackle paste over my Tim Holtz alpha stencil and let dry.  I then took some Distress Oxide sprays in the colors kitsch flamingo, salvaged patina and speckled egg and mixed with sprayed water to let the the colors run over the stenciled areas.  After it dried, I used the Tim Holtz Grunged stamp set and stamped more letters over the background with black archival ink.  The edges were blended with dark gray ink and then I splattered the page with gold and white paints with a fan brush.  Lastly, I took some white gold metallic wax and went over the stenciled letters.

The film strip came from the Whimsy Stamps Slmiline Film Strip die cut out from black cardstock. For the three image sections, I found some packaging with maps images on them and cut it out with the same die.  Since the packaging had a slick surface, I painted it with clear gesso so I could stamp over it.  After it dried, I stamped the three panels with the TH Grunged stamp set in the same colors of Oxide inks as the background and then stamped the travel images with black archival ink from an old Stampin’ Up! set called “Traveler”.  To finish is off, I used an old chip board letter “A” from my stash, painted it black and added some more of that white gold wax along the edges, found a TH “small talk” sticker to go over it and then I drew some lines around it and sponged it to make it look grungy.  I finished it with more ephemera I found in my stash from Tim Holtz and Stamperia… and decided to call it done.

  • Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I hope you’ve found some inspiration with my project!  Enjoy your day!

Challenges I’d like to enter my page for:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Where in the World? (travel theme)
  2. Crafting Happiness – Any type of craft
  3. Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media
  4. Paper a la Mode – No Cards – I was inspired by grungy things
  5. Crafting From the Heart – No Cards – Anything Goes
  6. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes

May AJ Page-Start a New Beginning

Hello friends!  I feel like the time keeps moving whether or not I do!  At the last minute before getting something done, I finally started this page! Once I got going, it was fun to just play around to see what happens!

It’s time for the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month.  I know she will have some wonderful inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” May prompt of “FLOWERS”.

I noticed looking back on my AJ pages that I rarely use flowers on them unless it’s already apart of some papers that I’m using.  So this was a good challenge for me and it was fun to pull out these Tim Holtz “Flower Garden” stamps and dies from my collection to use for this one.

For the background:  I started with my 9″x6″ pre-punched holes of Canson 140# cold press watercolor and used a brick stencil and model paste.  I covered the entire page with some linen and umber paints mixed together.  I dabbed a bit of orange and spritzed it with water for a rust look.  I then went over that with a dry brush effect with some light ivory paint to bring out the texture of the brick pattern.

The flowers and stems were stamped over a watercolor Bristol that I previously made and splattered with chocolate paint.  I also covered the die cut flowers with shimmer spray. (Not sure if you can catch that in the photo.)  All of the stems were glued, and the flowers were glued with some being popped with foam tape.  I covered the bottom area over the stems with grit paste and then went over it with brown paint to give the appearance of dirt.

I took a Dylusions stamp and white heat embossed it over chocolate cardstock for the sentiment, hand cut it and popped up with foam tape at the top of the page.  I added a butterfly from a Tim Holtz ephemera pack.

 

Hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today!  Thanks for dropping in and checking it out!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Flowers
  2. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
  3. Simon Says Stamp Monday – Watercolor (I watercolored the flowers/stems)
  4. Arty Divas – Anything Goes

November AJ Page-Peace Love and Hope

Hello friends!  Hope that you’re having a wonderful weekend and I can’t believe we’re looking at the end of November already as well as almost the end of the year too!  Since I’ve been doing most of my post this month with guesting for Inky Stamper, it’s time to change it up a bit.

At the end of the month, I do an Art Journal page and collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), so please check out her blog for her AJ page too!🥰  We’re trying to get creative by using up our never-ending stash piles!  So here’s my Art Journal inspiration with the “SMASH OUR STASH” November prompt of “washi tape/stickers/border stickers, etc” :

So with the Smash our stash theme, I went through and pulled out so many stickers in my collection…and then realized that I’ve had some of these things for such a long time!  I couldn’t use them all, but I made something work with a fun Christmas theme in mind.

For the background:  I started out with my pre-punched holes at the top of my 140# cold press paper sized 6″x9″ and covered the bottom portion of the page with some Tim Holtz Christmas themed washi tape.  I thought it was a bit too bright and went over it with some white paint and a brayer.  I also took a collage paper of Christmas music sheet paper and stamped a couple of different images over it to further the collaged background.  I also covered this area with a thin layer of mixed media silver paint.

I die cut a pine tree and sponged some inks around the edges and turned that as well as the die cut sparkle snowflakes into stickers using my Xron machine.  I stamped the two deer in black ink and heat embossed over it a clear EP.  I then took a Tim Holtz stencil and used some sparkle texture paste over it for snow. (Before I attached the larger snowflake stickers.)  I also splattered the page with some white paint too…lots of snowfall going on!

For the wording:  I had some black thickers (as they call them, which are thick foam letter stickers) for the “PEACE” and then the other words are stickers from my stash.  The heart is from the thicker sheet too.  I took some silver rubbing paste with my finger and went along the edges of the page as well as the thicker letters to add some interest.  Lastly: I made a “snow ground” for the deer by applying some glue and covering it with some glitter crystals.  I also added some black gem stickers to the center of each snowflake sticker.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today and have been inspired in some way.  Thanks for much for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

  1.  Art Journal Journey – Collage Fodder and/or Food and Drink (collage fodder here)
  2. Mixed Media Lovers – Letters/text/quote 
  3. Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media
  4. Creative Moments – Winter
  5. Arty Divas – Anything Goes
  6. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – NOT a card

Try It On Tuesday GDT-Say It With Flowers

Hello friends and happy Tuesday!  Hope you’re having a great start to your week. Now that Spring has officially began, we can start seeing signs of Spring everywhere and look forward to warmer temperatures here!  Yay! 

new tiot banner for blogsTioT guest designer 2022I’m excited to share my project for the new challenge over at the “Try It On Tuesday” Challenge Blog as their guest designer this time! An AJ page I entered in a previous challenge earned me a spot as a future guest, so I’m thrilled to be joining with them for a new challenge!  Their theme for this challenge is to “Say It With Flowers“, so please be sure to stop in and have a look at the amazing inspiration from the team!  Here’s what I’ve made for the challenge:

Since I usually add a sentiment to my makes, I decided to say what I wanted to convey without any words which is how I took the challenge.  So my thoughts were about Spring coming out in color with the dull drab of winter in the browns and blacks in the background.  The dead is coming alive again in color!  That was my thought process anyway. LOL

I love the flowers in the Tim Holtz Mini Bouquet stamp set.  I’ve used watercolor paper to stamp them and then used the Distress ink pads smooshed on a mat to watercolor them in including the new Salt Water Taffy color that I’ve been wanting to try out.  I used the coordinating dies to cut them with and then also die cut some stems in green and brown cardstock to attach onto the flowers.  I rubbed a bit of gold paint with my finger over the edges of them.  They were popped up with foam tape over a prepared oval die cut panel stamped with various TH stamps with some gold glitter added around the edges.  I die cut an oval ornate piece behind it with some glossy black cardstock.

For the background, I’ve done various things to it including using Distress Oxide sprays for the background, adding some black heat embossed silhouette florals to the bottom as well as modeling paste through a TH floral stencil.  To bring out the texture of the stenciled background, I used some more gold paint to rub over it with my finger.  I also added some splatter with the gold paint over the entire background along with another splatter layer of white paint.

I distressed the edges and layered it over a piece of black glossy cardstock sized 5″x7″.  I found some TH ephemera black and white florals that I cut in half to pop up over the bottom two corners and then used some metal corner pieces for the top.  I sprayed a wooden butterfly with black spray stain and some Distress Mica Spray Stain in Crooked Broomstick as this gave it that “black/brown” combo I was going for.

Lastly, I took a piece of tan seam binding and sprayed it with some more Distress sprays, crinkled it up and wrapped some around the front layer and then added a bow over top of the stems of the bouquet.  The oval panel was popped up over the center with foam tape.

There is actually lots of dimension on this as you can get a better look of it with a close up here.  There are different layers in the flowers as well as all of the layers of panels underneath it.  I like how it turned out and had lots of fun playing around and using up some more of my never ending stash too!  ( I think I’m becoming a spray-a-holic lately! LOL)

So please be sure to hop on over to the “Try It On Tuesday” Challenge Blog to see the rest of the inspiration for the challenge.  I hope you will take the time to join in the challenge with us too!  Would love to see what you come up with!  

Hope that you’ve enjoyed my make today!  Thanks for dropping by and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Mixed Media Lovers – Anything Goes mixed media
  2. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes mixed media
  3. The Funkie Junkie Boutique – “Rather Blustery Day” – Struggle with NOT adding words/sentiments…I ALWAYS want to do that and so it’s a huge challenge NOT to want to add that somewhere! Plus, omitting color in some way.
  4. The Four Seasons – Anything Goes Spring
  5. Shopping Our Stash – Spread Your Wings (Wooden butterfly from stash! Yay!)
  6. Crafty Friends – Flowers
  7. Creative Inspirations – Spring Flowers

February AJ Page-Explore

Hello friends!  Hope that you are doing well and staying warm and safe out there.  It’s been a few minutes since my last post, but that’s because I’ve been working very hard making wedding invites!  They’re coming together and almost done!  At some point I will share those, but today I have an AJ page to share with you!  It was nice to be able to take a break from creating invites to turning my mind on making a page.

**My crafty friend Carol is joining along with me each month to help inspire us both as well as others and I’m so thrilled to be doing this with her, so please click on her name and check out her page too!  We’re coming together as I think we both have an issue with “too much stash”…who doesn’t?!🙄 So I’ve come up with some ‘AJ prompts’ to help us both “Smash Our Stash” to start using it up for our own creative outlets and have some FUN!  The month of February gives us the prompt: ribbon/fibers/twine/thread

If you do any Art Journaling, then you know that sometimes when you have something in mind to do, it doesn’t always turn out like you think it will in your head!  This is the case with this one!  I like how it turned out and really enjoyed the process of it along with feeling good about using up some ribbon and twine overflowing in my stash!

I’m continuing on with making my own AJ book, so I’ve got the holes ready at the top of my 6″ x 9″ 140# watercolor page.  I like to use something really thick as I think it helps to hold all of the wet media/paint without it warping too badly.  

I’ve started by using a Tonic Studios “Falling Diamonds” stencil with embossing paste towards the bottom and not going all the way up to the top of the page.  I then used Salvaged Patina and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Oxide Sprays over top letting colors mix and run.  Once dried, I added some sponged white paint over a Tim Holtz stencil.  I then took some Ranger Ground Espresso paint and added some paint splatters over it, set aside to dry.  Then came my first introduction of the prompt onto my page.  I took some left over pieces of lace (in fact this was the last of this piece from my stash…why I kept it?  Who knows!!!) and glued it randomly onto the background.  Once dried, I added some water-downed Ground Espresso paint over those areas, sprayed with water and let run.  I also took the same paint and sponged around the edges to darken them up.  After it dried, I took some Art Alchemy “Old Silver” wax and rubbed over the raised areas of the paste and lace with my fingers until it showed up as I wanted it to.

I decided at this point, that I wasn’t going to do what I had planned in my head as I thought the background was going to turn out much lighter and brighter.  It turned out more antique/grunge, but I was still happy with it and just changed the plan a bit.  I don’t know what these are called, but I named them “Twine Twirls“.  I took a double-sided adhesive sheet and covered a piece of cardstock with one side, die cut a couple of different sized circles, took the backing off the other side of the adhesive and used some twine in my stash to continue to swirl around the center of the adhesive circle until reaching the edges.  (Do you ever get twine wrapped around one of your craft orders and save it?  That’s what all of this twine is from…can you believe I saved them and got plenty more to use?!!)  I then took a piece of VERY old ribbon from my stash and attached to the back of each “Twine Twirl”.  I laid these over the page where I wanted it and added an adhesive strip at the top of the page right below the holes to secure them as well as glued the back of the circles.  You can also see that I’ve attached some bows above 3 of the “Twine Twirls” too.  I used some Stickles glitter glue and brushed over top of each “Twine Twirl” and set aside to dry.

I also fussy cut out one of the Tim Holtz paper dolls to glue over one of the “Twine Twirls” and then used some foam tape to pop him up over the page as needed once the glitter had dried.

For the top of the page where I’ve added the “Twine Twirl” ribbons, I took another piece of lace that matched that ribbon and covered it over top of the ends.  Since it’s lace, you can see through it, so I layered on another piece of brown taupe ribbon in the center of that. (I’ve used scissors to cut the ends off the page.)

For the lettering, I used some of the items I used for the background page onto a piece of blank cardstock and then cut the letters out using the Taylored Expressions Cap It Off Alpha taking off the frame around the letters.  I glued the letters over top of the ribbon and then covered each letter with glossy accents.

The phrases come from a Tim Holtz “Clippings” sticker book and then I took a brown pen to outline around it.  I finished the page by adding some of the Tim Holtz stars adornments in random areas.

I really hope you’ve enjoyed our AJ pages today or have been inspired in some way!  Be sure to join us next month too!  Thank you so much for dropping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – What’s Your Style? (I love using stencils most of the time but enjoy “exploring” different medias too!  Not sure about a specific style…I like them ALL!)
  2. Simon Says Stamp Monday – Art Journal
  3. Try It On Tuesday – Add Some Texture
  4. Creative Artiste – #79 Anything Mixed Media Goes
  5. Mixed Media Lovers – #10 Anything Mixed Media
  6. Arty Divas – Anything Goes
  7. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes

It’s a Spooky Kind of Love

Happy Friday friends!  We’re now upon Halloween weekend!🎃  Are you ready?!  Lots of candy on hand to give out and some to enjoy for yourself…check.  Scary movies at the ready…check.  Ready for lots of fun before the weekend ends!

Not really sure exactly where my love for Halloween comes from, but I love it so much that even my wedding anniversary comes real close too!  So today is our 22nd year anniversary and I couldn’t have made it in this crazy life without my “Boo”!  I’ve made a card to let him know how I feel:

And yes, this is probably something we would certainly be doing under that moon as we’ve done before including watching bats fly around in the sky!  We do weird and wonderful things which is just ONE of the gazillion reasons why I love him so!  I’ve made a card with a bit of a “love/Halloween” theme.  I’m not sure I’ve ever really made a Halloween style card for him before, but I know this will make total sense for him and he’ll get a kick out it.

Started with the background using some Oxide ink blending keeping careful with leaving the “moon” area clean.  I sprayed water over top of the purplish/black background for that texture and then took a Taylored Expressions heart stencil over the background and introduced another color of oxide ink.  I ink blended the edges and bottom with black.  I have a Tim Holtz “Moon Mask” to create the moon with…which makes it super easy!  I stamped the fence at the bottom right and the bats with black ink.  The couple on the bench (TE “Love Story” die) was die cut from black cardstock and glued in the center of the large heart.  Lastly, I white heat embossed the sentiment over another piece of black cardstock and cut it out with a sentiment banner attached to the top left edge.

It’s really a simple card, but I loved creating the background with a “spooky love” feel that I know he’ll like too!

And since we’re going “all batty” here, I thought I’d share my creation that I’ve made for this months’ Inky Stamper challenge using a recycled item!  I thought this might be a good opportunity to create a fun treat!  I took an empty paper towel holder to cut a 2″ tall container with a handle and covered it with some Doodlebug papers.  I layered some trim and ribbon around it and added a punched-out circle for the bottom.

I’ve used the Inky Stamper Bat stamp set for the bat that I’ve stamped, colored and die cut for the front of my treat holder.  I’ve cut out a stamped sentiment banner to tie onto the handle.  Really easy and fun to create!  You could get about 5 containers per empty roll which I thought was a lot!

I sure hope you’ve enjoyed my “BATTY” makes today and I wish you a very frightfully FUN weekend!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!

Challenges:

  1. Creative Knockouts – Anything Goes
  2. Alphabet – ‘O’ is for Outdoors
  3. Sweet Stampin’ – All Hallows Eve
  4. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
  5. Make My Monday – (E)scape it (scene)
  6. Little Red Wagon – Outside (outdoors)
  7. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
  8. CCEE Stampers – Create a Scene
  9. Stamping Sensations – Animals, Birds & Bugs

Spooky Undertaker Tag for {Cupcake INspirations} Color Challenge

Hello there friends!  I’ve been a bit MIA lately but that’s because I’ve actually been having fun attending a virtual stamp event which I will be sharing some things I’ve done with you later and I’ll be doing it all over again this weekend as well!🥳  Although it doesn’t replace an in-person live event, it was lots of fun!  I’ve also been enjoying time visiting with my son who stopped by for the weekend!

 

Today I’m stopping in to share my creation with you for the brand new challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations} using this unique color combo:  OLIVE, RED and LAVENDER  The first thing I had thought of was the inspirational photo to go along with it and it reminded me of this cool Tim Holtz stamps/stencil set I bought a few years ago:

I thought it would be fun to play around a bit with my Distress Spray Stains over one of those Distress Tags.  So I sprayed a few of the colors over it and then also sprayed water over it as well to get the colors moving and blending together.  I think it turned out pretty cool.  I used the Distress Sprays I used were Crushed Olive, Fired Brick and Seedless Preserves.

I then took the stencil from the Tim Holt “Halloween 2 Stamps/Stencil” set and used some Black Soot distress ink to sponge the bats in the center of the tag.  I then used the coordinating distress ink colors and used the other portion of the stencil to sponge the colors with.  I took a thin strip of black cardstock to attach above and below the stenciled bat areas.

I took the skull image from the Tim Holtz “Halloween 2” stamp set and stamped it with black pigment ink over a piece of vanilla style cardstock and heat set it with clear embossing powder.  I fussy cut him out and added a piece of purple metallic ribbon around his hat and then glued on a purple flower along the side before popping him with foam tape in the center of the oval die cut piece from silver foil cardstock.

I stamped the “undertaker” sentiment from the stamp set with black permanent ink along with some scripty words in random places over the tag.  I also had some Tim Holtz Halloween rub-ons that I used for the spider and the “31” numbers.  I finished the tag with some more of that purple metallic ribbon and the key charm at the top.

Here’s a closer view of the skull with the embossed details along with the shine from the foil cardstock and ribbons.

Really had fun putting this tag together and I think it will make a fun spooky treat to share with someone I love because I have several family members that are really into the spooky Halloween theme besides myself! Yay!

Thanks for stopping by and leaving your kind support! It’s very much appreciated and I’ll be seeing you again soon my friends!!

Challenges:

  1. Unicorn – Spooky and/or Cute
  2. Arty Divas – Anything Goes
  3. Creative Craft Cottage – Spooky and/or Cute
  4. The Paper Funday – #22 Anything Goes optional: Halloween/All Hallows Eve
  5. Creative Moments – #200 Anything Goes
  6. As You Like It – Fave non-card project and why? (I love making tags because I feel like you can “experiment” with different media on it and I like that I can use it for putting on gifts or even add to a card later.)
  7. This is Halloween – Anything Halloween
  8. The Divas That Cut Paper – Autumn-Thoughts of Halloween + die cut/punch
  9. Crafty Cardmakers – Create a Tag
  10. Two Old Bats Halloween – Anything Halloween Goes *new challenge blog*